The Ice Storm

The Ice Storm is a 1997 drama film, set at Thanksgiving 1973 during a fictional ice storm, featuring two dysfunctional suburban Connecticut families trying to deal with tumultuous political and social changes of the early 1970s, and their escapism through alcohol, adultery, and sexual experimentation.

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[to Elena] The only big fight we've had in years is about whether to go back into couples therapy.

[to Paul] On the self-abuse front - and this is important - I don't think it's advisable to do it in the shower. It wastes water and electricity and because we all expect you to be doing it there in any case. And, not on... under the linen... Well... Anyway, if you're worried about anything at all, just feel free to ask and we'll look it up.

Well, that's the whole point of the holidays, Paul. So you and your sister can mope around the house, and your mother and I can wait on your hand and foot, while the two of you occasionally grunt for more food from behind the hair in your faces. Believe it or not, we actually enjoy it.

[voiceover] In issue 141 of the Fantastic Four, published in November, 1973, Reed Richards had to use his anti-matter weapon on his own son, who Aannihilus has turn into the Human Atom Bomb. It was a typical predicament for the Fantastic Four, because they weren't like other superheroes. They were more like a family. And the more power they had, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it. That was the meaning of the Fantastic Four: that a family is like your own personal anti-matter. Your family is the void you emerge from, and the place you return to when you die. And that's the paradox - the closer you're drawn back in, the deeper into the void you go.

[voiceover] To find yourself in the negative zone, as the Fantastic Four often do, means all every day assumptions are inverted. Even the invisible girl herself becomes visible and so she loses the last semblance of her power. It seems to me that everyone exists partially on a negative zone level, some people more than others. In your life, it's kind of like you dip in and out of it, a place where things don't quite work out the way they should. But for some people, the negative zone tempts them. And they end up going in, going in all the way.

[voiceover] When you think about it, it's not easy to keep from just wandering out of life. It's like someone's always leaving the door open to the next world, and if you aren't paying attention you could just walk through it, and then you've died. That's why in your dreams it's like you're standing in that doorway... and the dying people and the newborn people pass by you... and brush up against you as they come in and out of the world during the night. You get spun around, and in the morning... it takes a while to find your way back into the world.

Because of molecules we are connected to the outside world from our bodies. Like when you smell things, because when you smell a smell it's not really a smell, it's a part of the object that has come off of it, molecules. So when you smell something bad, it's like in a way you're eating it. This is why you should not really smell things, in the same way that you don't eat everything in the world around you because as a smell, it gets inside of you. So the next time you go into the bathroom after someone else has been there, remember what kinds of molecules you are in fact eating.

Philip Edwards: Sometimes the shepherd needs the comfort of the sheep.

Elena Hood: I'm going to try hard not to understand the implications of that.

Philip Edwards: Perhaps you find in books what I try to find in people.

Elena Hood: That sounds vaguely like an insult.

Sandy Carver: Where are you going?

Mikey Carver: Out.

Sandy Carver: Its freezing!

Mikey Carver: Yeah

Sandy Carver: Then why are you going?

Mikey Carver: When it's freezing...because it means the molecules aren't moving, so when you breath, there's nothing in the air, you know, you breathe into your body, the molecules have stopped, it's clean.